


How Bruce Got His Kids

by StimmyMage



Series: Batfam AU Fluff [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Batfamily (DCU), Fluff, I know they don't have powers to begin with, Multi, so no heroes I guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27606065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StimmyMage/pseuds/StimmyMage
Summary: Bruce Wayne never became Batman, at Alfred's urging, and instead took other avenues of social change. That got more complicated the more kids he wound up with, though. AU just because I wanted some happy Batfam fluff without dealing with all the canon trauma and angst. Everyone is related by birth or adoption, so none of the canon romances are a thing!
Relationships: Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Series: Batfam AU Fluff [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019397
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	How Bruce Got His Kids

**May 1998**

It was understandable, really. Everyone knew Bruce Wayne was the eccentric loner rich kid. He had barely finished high school and just inherited a multimillion-dollar company. His only friend was a 50-year-old butler. It had been a decade since his parents died.

Exactly a decade today. He hadn’t wanted to even get out of bed. Alfred had had to force him. And now that he was up, he didn’t want to go anywhere. As much as he hated the dull and shallow board meetings, he wished there was one to go to. But Lucious had kindly arranged for him to have the day off, knowing what it was.

Bruce almost never drove himself anywhere, but he had made it a point to learn so he wasn’t a completely helpless rich kid. He took the relatively plain car and drove around Gotham, with no concept of where he would end up.

The cheery music and brightly colored tent against the quiet gray city drew him in. He parked on the gravel where his car was clearly the most expensive, stuffed his hands into the pockets of the sweatshirt he wore everywhere but work, and bought himself a circus ticket.

It was a good decision. The bright costumes and cheap humor was exactly what he needed. No one took Bruce for someone that would enjoy the circus, but some part of him wasn’t any different than every other teenager. Never mind a certain obsession with Gotham social issues.

And then he saw her. She was the lone trapeze artist and seemed far too skilled for a cheap traveling circus. She should have been a professional gymnast. But she clearly loved what she was doing; looks of intense concentration and then joy played out on her face as she flipped between platforms and swinging bars.

He rarely talked to anyone he didn’t have to for business or appearances, but for some reason he found himself hovering in the twilit parking lot after the show, hoping she’d come around again. He couldn’t resist smiling when she did, wearing more ordinary but hardly less sparkly clothes.

Her name was Mary Grayson. She was a year older than him but had never been to school at all. She’d grown up in the circus because her uncle owned it, and she couldn’t imagine doing anything else. He was equally entranced by her boundless enthusiasm and the idea of having such freedom to live life.

He bought her dinner that night and then took her home to his too-large and too-quiet mansion. Alfred raised his eyebrows at them and then vanished. The next morning he tried to make her breakfast, almost burned down the kitchen, and left her collapsed in laughter on the floor. They had fun, for that entire month. She only had shows in the evening during the week, so they went to the zoo and the museum and swam in the river by the park. But then she had to leave and told him she traveled too much for a real relationship. Their last kiss was long and sweet, and Bruce found himself thinking maybe life wasn’t as dull and gray as he’d assumed.

**October 1998**

Bruce thought about Mary constantly but he knew it was useless. He would never see her again. But the endless girls who flirted with him at events had none of her charm or enthusiasm for life; they were as dead inside as he was.

He’d had a full day of meetings, and he was really grumpy about it. Most of them had been boring and, in his opinion, useless budget discussions. He was realizing that he wanted to use his power to help the world, not find the cheapest office supplies to buy. To make matters worse, it was pouring rain and he’d told Alfred he didn’t need a ride this morning.

Bruce was a painfully slow driver in the rain. By the time he trudged inside, shaking himself off like a dog, he was ready for an evening of nothing but mindless tv. But he found Alfred hovering in the foyer, looking a little pale. He handed him a message slip and vanished, muttering something about dust in the library.

Alfred had carefully filled out the message slip in its entirety, even though half of it would have been obvious from context:

To: Bruce Wayne  
From: Mary Grayson  
Date: October 12, 1998  
Time: 2:08pm  
Message: I wanted to let you know that I’m pregnant, but I don’t need anything from you. I know plenty of children raised in the circus and mine will be, too. But I thought you should know.

Bruce spent a week panicking. The fact that she’d let him off the hook didn’t make him feel any better. He wanted to do the right thing, but he didn’t know anything about being a parent. He desperately wished his father was there to help him. Finally, Alfred told him that if he really wanted to he would do fine.

Bruce spent another two weeks trying to track Mary down to contact her. He finally found the number for the circus and then spent what felt like an hour convincing the man who answered to put Mary on.

He avoided handling delicate matters. He looked away from them. So, now, Bruce stuttered through an explanation that of course he wanted to be a real father.

It turned out Mary was adamant about raising her child in the circus. They couldn’t exactly have an ordinary custody agreement if she never stayed in the same place. But finally she agreed to send the child to Bruce for 3 months every summer. It would spend the rest of the year with her.

Bruce wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.

**February 1999**

Bruce was expecting the call this time, and she called him directly at work. He had a son named Richard. Bruce was still 18 but in his finely tailored suit sitting in his corner office and being told he had a child now, he really felt like a man for the first time in his life.

He tried to chat more with Mary, but she made an excuse to hang up quickly.

**June 1999**

She dropped Dick off at Wayne manor personally. She looked as vibrant as Bruce remembered, except that she no longer wanted to talk much to him. She just handed him the 3-month-old baby and a bag of supplies, and then was gone.

Bruce didn’t know what to do. Alfred, who hadn’t even started working for the Waynes until Bruce was 5, didn’t know what to do. They had set up a nursery, but Dick didn’t sleep at all that night, just wailed loudly no matter who held him or what he was offered. The next day, while he _was_ asleep, Bruce left him with Alfred (who did not approve of this plan) and went to the library to research baby care.

He read conflicting advice on every topic imaginable, his head was spinning, and he had to work the next day, so Bruce checked out an entire stack of baby books. The librarian gave him a _look_ , but he was pretty sure she didn’t know who he was.

He read every book, cover-to-cover, while rocking or feeding Dick. He had a notepad full of advice that actually seemed good. By the third week Dick slept for at least the first half of the night before waking Bruce up, and he seemed happy enough to stack blocks or swing at the park during the day. Bruce carefully avoided talking to the other parents there.

The hardest part, really, was avoiding an entire summer of parties. He’d never liked the parties much anyway, but someone of his class was expected to attend. He made it to one out of the ten or so galas, parties, and charity events he received invitations for. He and Alfred made a deal: Alfred had to write all of the regrets cards he returned to the Gotham socialites, if Bruce would not make him babysit at least until Dick could walk and talk.

This meant hiring a babysitter when Bruce couldn’t get out of work. He was glad to spend time cooing at a baby if it meant avoiding meetings, but sometimes his presence really was required. He paid the lady three times her standard fee to not mention to anyone that teenage socialite and rising businessman Bruce Wayne had a son.

By the time he said goodbye to Dick at the end of August, he was just as curt with Mary as she had been with him. Playing with his baby had come to matter more to him than chatting her up. He made her promise to send him pictures until next summer and, like clockwork, at least one arrived every month.

Bruce would have died before admitting that he was the loneliest he’d ever been that night, with no soft snores or sharp cries coming from the next room. He curled up in his big, silent bed and found himself crying.

**June 2004**

“Daddy!” It was the first year that Mary had sent Dick alone on the bus. Bruce really wasn’t sure about this arrangement, but he had to admit that he’d arrived just fine, lugging his Superman backpack behind him.

“Hey, Bud!” He scooped up the tiny wiggling form and realized that life was alright again.

“Master Dick,” Alfred’s warm smile as the slid into the limo reflected this. As soon as Dick had grown out of babyhood, Alfred had taken an intense liking to him.

For the first two weeks, everything was just like it had always been. Bruce now managed to attend about half the summer parties, leaving Dick with Alfred. But he skipped just as much work and they hung out at construction sites and playgrounds and the pool. All the places Bruce had avoided as a child because of his status.

Dick especially liked to show off his new acrobatic moves on the lawn. Already at 5, he could do a backflip and land it, although he sometimes landed it in the flower bushes. He had a constant and contagious energy, a curiosity to know everything all the time. Which made Bruce wonder…

“Hey, Bud,” he managed to snatch him just before Alfred served dinner one evening. “Are you going to school this year?”

“Nah,” Dick shrugged in the nonchalant way of a much older boy, “We move too much, so Mom’s gonna teach me.”

Two weeks into this visit, Duke showed up. Bruce stayed up all night the night before obsessing about how to work this out. Because of the complicated situation with Jason, Duke would be the first sibling Dick knew. He was an only child who spent most of his time in an exciting circus full of adults to give him attention and sweets, and his summers in a mansion with a dad who seemed to have nothing better to do that take him places. How would he handle a younger sibling?

The answer was very normally, which was a word Bruce was never well-equipped to handle. When he was there, Duke toddled along behind Dick, who didn’t seem to mind. He showed him how to do things, tried to teach him acrobatic tricks, and no matter what Bruce said he wouldn’t stop flicking his brother’s nose.

At least they didn’t hate each other.

**June 2010**

Dick showed up wearing a basketball jersey and shorts to go with it. He didn’t play basketball, but he seemed to think it made him fit in more. To be fair, he didn’t meet many friends his age in the circus and at Bruce’s he mostly had his siblings.

He was the oldest, which made him cool enough already. He carefully kept his older sibling power with the right balance of teasing, advice, and wowing them with circus tricks. Last year he’d talked Alfred into making part of the basement a circus gym, with trapeze and trampolines and tightrope. His mother only did the trapeze, but Dick loved it all. He practiced for hours by himself and put on shows for his family.

At the beginning of the summer, Dick swept into the mansion like visiting royalty, Bruce trailing behind with his bag. Immediately, a gaggle of little siblings surrounded him for hugs and stories. Jason always hung back a little, but his eyes were as eager as everyone else’s.

Dick told stories of his glamourous circus life and in turn listened intently as his siblings talked about school. Bruce sometimes thought he seemed a little sad or jealous of them, but that impression always evaporated as soon as he was running off ahead of the crowd to the fair or swinging between trees in the park. He wore the normal, slightly sloppy, clothes of any city preteen when they were out, but when he put on evening acrobatic shows he always changed into the glittery jumpsuit his mother made him.

That was the summer when Dick first saw Bruce’s office. Bruce had insisted, much to his chagrin, that Dick wear a real suit. He didn’t argue exactly, but there was a lot of grumbling on the ride over. The entire office very carefully did not stare as Bruce led a scrawny 11-year-old down the hall to his office and showed him around. Dick tried not to look bored, but really the only part he cared about was the way the chair spun and rolled when he kicked off.

He would never be one for business.

**July 2013**

“Dad, can I live with you?”

It was late. Dick was the last kid sitting up and watching tv with him. Bruce thought he must have heard wrong.

“What happened to your magical life at the circus?”

Dick shrugged and then was quiet for a long time before saying, “It’s not that I don’t love the circus. It’s amazing. But I don’t know if that’s really what I want to do forever, and it’s hard to get into college if you never go to high school. I love traveling and the clothes and tricks and Mom, but I want to try real school. Can I switch, live here with you for school and see Mom in the summer?”

“I’m not sure how your mother would feel about that, Dick,” but already Bruce had the sinking feeling that he was about to have to find out.

“Can we at least ask her? Please?” Dick rarely begged with his puppy-dog eyes anymore. Bruce found himself agreeing without really meaning to.

The last serious conversation with Mary about custody played through his head as the phone rang. She’d been so adamant that Dick spend most of his time with her.

This conversation was much shorter. Mary made him repeat himself several times, then sighed. “If that’s what he really wants.”

When he reported the news to Dick, Bruce left out the part where she’d sounded heartbroken. She had, however, insisted that in that case he spend August with her this year.

It took Bruce a day to get Dick enrolled at Gotham Academy and buy him a bus ticket. It took the entire week before he took his bags and mischievous grin away for Bruce to get used to the idea of seeing him more than a quarter of each year. It took the whole month he was gone for Bruce to redo the room Dick lived in at Wayne Manor to be a proper permanent high school kid’s. He wouldn’t even let Alfred help.

**May 2017**

The first time Bruce and Mary saw each other in 14 years was at Dick’s graduation. He kept trying to tell everyone it wasn’t a big deal, but he couldn’t hide the glow of pride. He’d had some trouble fitting in with not only other kids but other rich kids, but he’d made friends eventually. He’d had a girlfriend, Lana, for over a year now. He’d gotten into college.

Mary sniffled every time she thought about it, but Dick seemed very pleased with his plan to spend one last summer with the circus before going off to college. It didn’t matter that he still wasn’t sure what to study—he would figure out the details later.

Bruce’s first thought when he saw Mary sitting on a white folding chair was envy. She looked so cool and comfortable in her lavender tank top and flowing skirt. Unsure what was expected, Bruce had shown up in a full suit. But it was late May and way too hot for that. He was already sweating and nothing had even started yet.

Bruce, Mary, and Dick’s various siblings took up the entire front row. Despite Bruce’s best effort to keep them all in order, it was chaos. It didn’t help that Wayne was almost the last name in the alphabet and they had to sit through all the other graduates first.

When Dick walked on stage, he looked proud and grown up. For the first time, Bruce found it easy to believe that Dick was the same age now as Bruce had been when he was born. The moment was beautiful, but it didn’t last long. Almost in unison, Tim and Steph started yelling rude comments about Dick’s maturity. Cass was cheering as loud as she could, Jason was wolf-whistling sarcastically. Bruce could feel Mary glaring at him, but all he could do was shrug. This was their life. Dick was used to it too, but he still blushed and fumbled his diploma slightly.

**March 2020**

When lockdown first hit, Dick was not happy. No one was happy, but he was particularly pissed off. He was 21 years old, spent most weekends at college parties with Lana, had finally decided to become a lawyer, and was much more popular in college than he’d been in high school. He finally understood his place in life.

And then suddenly he was back in the room that hadn’t changed since he was 14, in a literal mansion that still seemed too crowded with siblings. He was happy enough to go home for spring break to give his brothers (and Steph) a hard time. And then they announced school was moving online after break, and he was less than thrilled.

He couldn’t even study at his favorite Gotham coffee shop. Some days he took his laptop to sit down by the river in the nearly-abandoned warehouse district. But some days he was forced to find a quiet place in the mansion. Just to have something else to do, he redecorated his room to be more mature and less teenage boy.

He was actually surprised when most of his siblings started asking for homework help. He didn’t interact much with them anymore except to pull the occasional prank, so he reluctantly agreed. But he spent the summer feeling antsy, barely able to wait for fall to get back to Lana and school. Something about spending most of his life in a circus had made him excellent at finding solitude in loud, crowded environments. Sometimes Alfred had to hunt him down for dinner. Sometimes he couldn’t be found at all.


End file.
